Donald Trump’s framework agreement for ending the Gaza war and reconstructing the devastated territory has momentum behind it.
Much of it comes from the president himself. Momentum comes too from leading Arab and Islamic countries who have supported the plan, including Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkey. And Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, standing next to Donald Trump, accepted it too, despite the fact it contains talk of a pathway to a Palestinian state that he has repeatedly denounced.
To keep the pace up, Trump says that Hamas has 'three to four days' to decide whether to say yes or no. If the answer is no, the war goes on.
The proposed deal looks a lot like a plan put forward by Joe Biden well over a year ago. Since then there has been massive killing of Palestinian civilians, more destruction in Gaza, and now a famine, while Israeli hostages in Gaza have had to endure months more of agony and captivity.
Even so, the framework plan is a significant moment. For the first time, Donald Trump is putting pressure on Israel to end the war. Donald Trump has made himself into a leader to whom it is hard to say no. Before Benjamin Netanyahu left Washington DC to go back to Israel, his staff filmed him delivering his version of events. One element was the idea of Palestinian independence, the two-state solution which the UK and other Western countries have tried to revive by recognizing Palestine.
The Trump document gives an indeterminate nod to the idea of Palestinian independence. It says that after the reform of the Palestinian Authority, conditions 'may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.'
Momentum is the plan's strength. Its weakness is the lack of detail, a characteristic of Trumpian diplomacy. The document endorsed by Trump and Netanyahu comes with a rough map of stages of an IDF pull-back, but lacks the necessary specifics that determine whether diplomatic agreements designed to end a war hold together or disintegrate.
Mainstream opposition parties in Israel have endorsed the plan. However, it has been condemned by the extremist ultra-nationalists in the Netanyahu coalition, who wanted a more forceful approach regarding the Palestinian population. Despite the foundational ambiguity in the proposed deal, it remains to be seen if this agreement can endure given the deep-seated conflict that has lasted more than a century. Long-term, it is recognized that any attempted solution that does not lead to Palestinian independence will likely not bring peace.
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